Tag Archives: US history

Review: How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr (Read by Luis Moreno)

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This is a history book written for a general audience and it is about the United States and its territories. It explores why we have expanded, when we have expanded, how we’ve viewed territories, and the consequences of the views for both the people in the territories and the people at home.

I learned a lot reading this. I was aware that the U.S. still holds territories and that it has held more and different territories in the past, but hearing about how different territories have been treated and its connection to things like race and immigration rules was eye-opening. Thinking about things like citizenship has consequences for things like voting in national elections, so even if we don’t currently hold the all the territories we’ve historical held, this part of our history is still important because it does still impact us today. (If you’ll recall from the previous Presidential election where some of our citizenry were surprised to find that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, but they can only vote in the presidential election if they live on the mainland.)

So, this was good and I would recommend it. I also recommend getting it as an audiobook. Luis Moreno’s narration is engaging and it carried me through places where dates and details may have stopped me if I had been reading if off a page.

Review: Readme.txt by Chelsea Manning

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So, here are things that I knew about Chelsea Manning before reading this book:

  • She is a transwoman who was in the US military during Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
  • She leaked some documents
  • She went to prison for leaking some documents

But, I knew there was more to the story than those things so when her memoir came up in my recommendations, I thought it would be a good idea to check it out. Manning narrates the audiobook, and hearing her story in her own voice made it feel very personal. She discusses growing up in Oklahoma, realizing she was trans, and the problems that caused for her at school and at home (although she didn’t come out as trans for a long time.) She talks about being interested in computers and finding a community. She talks about coming out. She talks about being homeless. She talks about struggling with being trans and how the army, with its enforced masculinity, was part of an effort to change something about herself. She also discusses at length her ideals, what brought her to join the military, and what eventually brought her to share classified documents with Wikileaks. The memoir then discusses her time in prison and the military trial that initially gave her a 35-year prison sentence. This was later commuted by President Obama before he left office in 2017.

I liked how Manning’s humanity is always front and center in this memoir. I mean, as a memoir, how else would it be? But still, as someone who doesn’t have a lot of interaction with military personnel, this reminder that they are individuals with their own problems, concerns, and ideas. I also learned a little bit about how intelligence gathering works, which was at times interesting and appalling. Thinking about what kind of information the government can and does track about people, for various reasons is something that I’m going to be considering for a long while.

I think transparency and a knowledgeable public are important for our democracy, and looking around the world today, with the US in the middle of a Presidential election and ongoing conflicts in Palestine and Ukraine (And Sudan and Congo and many other places where my attention hasn’t already been drawn), thinking about what America’s role is on the world stage and how information and the public back home is managed is important. I am glad that I read this, even if it was at times a very difficult read. Her time in prison and the descriptions of solitary confinement were brutal.

So, if you are interested in contemporary American history and would like to hear about it from someone who was involved, this is worth the read. But, go into it knowing that there are descriptions of solitary confinement, homelessness, war crimes, and mentions of suicide.